T. B. Irving, The Qur’an: The First American Version; Translated and Commentary (1985)
The partitive construction may be known to some educated speakers of English from their study of French; yet this knowledge has rarely been used by other translators from the Arabic: “seek some of his bounty…” we are enjoined in 17:vii; and kulū min ṭayyibāt-i mā razaqriā-kum ‘eat the wholesome things we have provided you with’ (20:iv); also “some of those We transported along with Noah” (19:iv); and “so We may show you [Moses] some of our greatest signs” (20:i). These examples provide a random sample.
The superlative absolute presents another problem. It appears as ‘quite Aware’ for God’s quality as the Aʿlam (17:v); ‘quite Observant’ for Abṣar, and ‘quite Alert’ for Asmaʿ in 18:iv.
Translating into English has still other problems. For example, English is very deficient when it comes to 2nd-person pronouns, which nowadays are found only as “you”, “your” and “yours”. The old “ye”, “thou” and “thee” as well as their respective possessive pronouns are obsolete, especially when teaching our children, even though they appear in the King James version of the Bible and the translation of The Glorious Koran as this has been rendered by Marmaduke Pickthall. His archaic quality cannot live on. The situation is further complicated by the use of the indefinite “you” referring to “anybody” or “everybody” as in the colloquial expression “You should do that!" Occasionally I indicate the singular and plural of this pronoun (as these may occur in Arabic), especially when the Prophet is addressed; at other times the message is directed to his audience or to believers. “You all” or “you (all)” is more natural than “ye" in North American English, and I have occasionally used this neutral though dialectal plural with discretion where one must show the difference between the singular and the plural pronoun of Arabic. It sounds more natural even outside of the Deep South, than the obsolete “ye” which few North Americans can use effectively any more. The vocative particle yā… is usually translated as ‘O…!’; but it is usually omitted in contemporary English. Moses addresses his brother Aaron simply as “Son of my mother!” in 7:xviii.
English is also defective in the meanings for “man”, both as this word is opposed sexually to “woman”, and generically to the animal kingdom in general, and also to sprites. The singular insān means ‘(every) man’ in 17:ii and 19:v, almost in the spirit of the medieval European mysteries; and in the Chapter Al-ʿAṣr we meet him “At eventide, everyman / [feels] at a loss…” (103:1-2).
“Man(kind)” and “people” are other defective expressions in English. The ‘folk’ meant by qawm are literally those who “stand up” alongside you to defend your common interests. Ahl, on the other hand, means those people from one’s own tent group, “living down the street” or in the same apartment house, as we would express this in modern urban society. “Adam” is a symbol for original man, mentioned in the Qurʾān, but only referred to as the common ancestor of humanity: Banū Ādam. The name is derived from ‘red earth’ in Arabic referring to the clay God used in fashioning him.
